He was a bundle of contradictions. A raging anti-Semite yet one of the first major US employers to give wage parity to black workers. Often generous to his staff but vehemently (and, as we shall see, viciously) anti-union. A pacifist who profited from war. An innovator and yet also a technophobe. An inventor of the modern age yet nostalgic for the past. A populist who identified with the common man yet was one of the world’s first billionaires.
That he changed the motor industry and the world more profoundly than any figure from the automotive industry before or since is surely not open to question. He pioneered the affordable car, making motoring a utility for the masses rather than a luxury for the rich. His mass production techniques were widely copied in America and elsewhere (André Citroën was the first to use them in Europe). Today’s modern consumer society owes much to Henry Ford. In a very real sense he was responsible for creating much of the freedom we take for granted today.
The mass mobility that his Model T pioneered changed the way we live and work, as cities expanded into suburbs newly accessible by car. It was the beginning of mass urbanisation. Previously isolated communities were now accessible. A lengthy journey to an unseen region or town, or to visit a faraway relative, was now practical. Highways shrunk distances and permanently changed landscapes. The motorists Henry Ford created were free to explore a world vaster than many could even have imagined.
